1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to video, and more particularly, to a solution for managing video data, such as that obtained from surveillance video.
2. Background Art
In the security industry, video surveillance is an important tool for obtaining information. For example, surveillance video can provide valuable information on the commission of a crime to investigators. Increasingly, the security industry is focused on the prevention of crime. However, many video surveillance systems do not provide a useful preventive tool due to the large amount of video (or camera) data and limits on human capabilities.
In light of this, “smart” surveillance solutions are being proposed. These solutions incorporate automatic video analysis to provide real time alarms for suspicious behavior and situational awareness through an awareness of the location, identity and activity of objects in the monitored area. However, these solutions generate a large amount of video data as well as information about the video data, creating a data/information overflow problem. The organization and storage of this data affects the ability to search and/or retrieve information, and as a result, the value of the solution.
Current solutions store the information in a large number of files on a computer file system. As the number of files grows, an ability to efficiently search and/or retrieve the information is reduced. As a result, a need exists for an improved solution for managing video data.